Not sure what to make of that quote, especially in the present context. (And is the idea really that outlandish? If Indians could elect Jayalalitha, why couldn’t the Egyptians have elected Fifi Abdou?). Anyway… This is one of my favorite Fifi scenes. Rise up, Egypt!

Going back into the Golden Era (yes, everybody’s had a Golden Age or Era – everybody’s had better times than they’re having now)… I really like this next scene for the atmosphere, the beautiful clothes and adornments (gorgeous nose rings!), that precocious child Fairuz, and, of course, the great belly dancer Taheya Carioca.

This next one is a charming, earthy domestic bit… The actress-dancer is Nadia Lutfi.

This is the greatest dancer of all, Samia Gamal, in something a bit different from her usual – more toned down, modest attire, also an earthy kind of scene… And very, very charming.

As I mentioned a little while ago, I watched a bunch of Suraiya films within the past couple of months, and outside of Mirza Ghalib (which is in the proverbial class all by itself), I would have to say that my favorite one is Dillagi. A lot of that has to do with the beautiful music from Naushad, and the not-unrelated fact that Suraiya was at her true best here. The rest of the cast worked well in this movie too… Shyam was a good hero for Suraiya, Shyam Kumar was a sufficriently despicable and repulsive villain (though not the suave Pran type for those who are looking for that – he seems more like an uglier version of Jeevan), and toward the end, we get treated to a marvelous appearance by Baby Shyama…

Though the plot itself might seem a bit too familiar… We have a tragic love affair with Romeo-and-Juliet elements, a villain who frightens the heroine’s father about the possibility of his daughter’s “dishonor,” and, ultimately, a bad arranged marriage brought about in part through some major deceptions… This seems pretty unoriginal or cliched, even for 1949. On the other hand, however, there is one very refeshing plot element in Dillagi, which might actually be the best thing in this whole film (outside of the music). And that is, the unusually strong and prominent village girl gang. These are girls who know not only how to tease and philosophize about love…

…but also how to become very dangerous and threatening when the situation calls for it…

I have seen this sort of village girl gang featured in a lower-key way in other movies… There’s definitely a resemblance here to the gang that accompanies Meena Kumari near the beginning of Madhosh (1951), tormenting the film’s anti-hero. (And by the way, if you want to find out more about that movie, you can go to Memsaab’s current writeup.) Also with Meena Kumari at the center, there’s that gang of beautifully dancing/singing/meddling teasers near the beginning of Baiju Bawra (1952). (Isn’t it curious how these gangs always seem to be led by the voice of Shamshad Begum?)

But both those other films, though they actually were made a little later, fail to develop the village girl gang concept anywhere close to the extent that Dillagi does, as they basically drop the girl gang altogether when seemingly more important things arise (such as ostensibly serious drama, or the introduction of a real woman gangster). In Dillagi, the girl gang stays throughout the film, and they do very well at some tougher tasks that you wouldn’t normally expect from the village girl gang, such as exacting revenge or taking part in a little coercive persuasion, especially in their dealings with the villain.

They do some extremely mean things to him, but another thing about this gang that makes them so interesting is that even at their meanest, they never seem to stray from the spirit of playing games. (How fitting, then, that the title of the film itself can mean “game,” and that it is also listed at IMDb under the title “Mischief”…) Meanwhile, they can also play their game(s) to essentially good or benevolent purposes, as they do with the heroine. In fact, somewhat like the gang of girls in Baiju Bawra, their purpose for much of the time near the beginning seems to be to facilitate the meeting of the two lovers (albeit while embarrassing and teasing the heroine all along). We can see this purpose right near the beginning of the movie, when they cause the heroine to crash into her future lover during a game of Blind Man’s Bluff:

But that early scene also foreshadows one of the “games” they play with the villain, as they talk him into playing Blind Man’s Bluff so that he won’t be able to see them when they start beating him.

In that scene, at least they are nice enough merely to slap him… It’s not like the earlier scene in which they sneak into his house while he is passed out drunk, wake him up while disguised in black hooded robes, frighten him half to death by convincing him that they are demons or ghosts, beat him with sticks, and then poke him with a stick while he is on the ground, unconscious:

But at none of these times do the girl gang’s actions seem unjustly cruel! In fact, all the time, we are rooting for them. This is because they are courageously attempting to foil the villain’s plans every time he does something else diabolical to stop the meetings between the two lovers, influence the heroine’s father against her, and sew distrust within the community. So, when the ill-arranged marriage finally happens (and the girls want this villain to follow a plan to remedy the problem that he essentially caused)…it is time for the gang to get serious…

Unfortunately, all of these actions combined do not stop the film from eventually having a tragic ending. (Not to spoil anything, but this is a 1940s film about lovers and a community that doesn’t want them to be lovers…so it won’t be too difficult to figure out who won’t be around anymore at the end.) But the games themselves, and especially the women who play them, definitely add a unique quality to Dillagi.

Now, I have read/heard people complain that in the 1940s movies, women often seem too passive and/or self-sacrificing. I’ve even heard this said about some films starring Suraiya. And, admittedly, Suraiya does not get a chance to stray that far from this familiar kind of heroine in Dillagi. But the girl gang in Dillagi seems to convey an entirely different idea about women, their inclinations, and their capabilities…
———————————
P.S. The woman up front, on the right, in this picture below apparently is the girl gang’s leader. I thought this actress was great! But I’m having trouble figuring out who she is. Going by the cast list at IMDb (which everyone else copies), there are two or three possibilities. I would welcome a positive identification…

Kamini Kaushal – a fine actress, now one of my favorites (she secured that status in my mind just last week, when I watched Nadiya Ke Paar)… Born in Lahore, British India, on January 16, 1927… Co-starred with every one of the great actors of the Golden Age (see below), and was legendarily Dilip Kumar’s first famous flame (not that I care about all that gossip, of course ;) )… Also a former radio star and trained bharatanatyam dancer, and prize-winning toy maker(!)… And lo and behold, still thriving today.

Q: And Manoj Kumar whose mother you played in the maximum number of films.

A: That was during my third innings. I’ve had a very unpredictable sort of career. I’ve done what I wanted to do. Got married and left the industry when it was required and returned when it was okay. When I wanted to work, I did. When I was needed elsewhere, I didn’t. Cinema was never my be-all, end-all. When I worked, I did so with complete integrity. But work didn’t come above my family. For me, living a decent life is enough. Yes, I was passionate about acting, but not for the sake of making money. I like being creative. I love making toys as much as acting.

Q: So the family was always your priority?

A: You know, I’ve brought up five kids. . . . I continued to be creative from home. I designed so many toys, and won prizes. Toy making is as fulfilling as films, except that people don’t get to see your face. I don’t crave to see my face splashed everywhere. I once saw one of my colleagues literally adoring her reflection in the mirror. It was scary. I didn’t want that to happen to me. The temptation to become self-obsessive is very high in the entertainment business. Don’t get so sucked into stardom that you forget you’re human.

. . .

Q: Some of your biggest hits as a leading lady were with Dilip Kumar.

A: “Nadiya Ke Paar” was cute, like a little poem. Dilip and I got along very well. I shared an easygoing relationship with Raj Kapoor also. He was a prankster. We all had a whole lot of fun.

. . .

Q: Are you impressed by the work being done today?

A: Yes and no. Technically our films have really progressed, but the content is suffering. I’d like to see more content, but I’m sure youngsters feel differently. They aren’t aware of my films at all. To them it doesn’t matter whether actors from my era existed. Today’s generation knows so much. I grew up with a natural curiosity. Today’s generation have to grow up fast to face the competition.

Q: Are you in touch with colleagues?

A: When you’re working together there’s plenty of interaction. Some people maintain a permanent bonding beyond work. But I live in south Mumbai and the entire industry lives in Juhu and Andheri. To go to the other end of the city to meet friends isn’t possible. So I spend my free time swimming. I must do some exercise.

Q: Swimming at 80?

A: Why? What’s wrong with it? Either I do yoga or swim. I don’t have any vices.

——————
P.S. As I may have mentioned at some point, I got interested in Nadiya Ke Paar at first specifically because of the great soundtrack by C. Ramchandra. And for anybody who wants to hear or download that music, there are some MP3s at India Baja.

I usually don’t expose my ultra-leftist reading habits and interests on my “Indian film blog” (well, at least not too often anyway), but tonight I just had to share some passages that I saw in an article in Faridabad Workers Newspaper regarding the sinister social origins and content of the nose ring. Now, I have great respect for the people who do this blog/paper and I think that some things they say should be taken very seriously, but for some reason I just found this stuff about the nose ring to be very amusing. (Which isn’t to say that it isn’t true, of course…) But I’ll let the readers of this blog judge for themselves, as I’ve decided to post the passage here – with a few illustrations added…

*Although the control of humans is crossing the sky, ‘nathna’ (nose ring) is not in currency today. Nathna means to control. Making an hole in an ox’s nose and taking a rope through it was called natha. The actual rope in the ox’s nose was called ‘nath.’ In the stages of gathering and hunting, our ancestors’ behavior was chiefly that of being a part of nature. Controlling animals through nose-rings began changing many things.

-Putting nose-rings/controlling the ox, exploitation of the cow… This did not stop at animals. The owners of animals became the lords of slaves.

And husband became the synonym of lord and nath…

-In nature, such related capacity of a woman is equal to that of many men. One man cannot sexually satisfy one woman…Therefore, ‘nathna’, putting nose ring.

Continuous conflict within man and woman. There are no limits to doubt-suspicion-cruelty.

It has been a synchronicity of weapon and text that nose-rings became the ornament of strength or power of market.

It is the increasing weakness of man that is forcing woman also to become a wage worker. One politics of identity that places curtains on this reality presents it as woman’s empowerment…Becoming of woman as wage-worker is seen-shown as a step on the path of emancipation.

Market-Money are making the individual the unit of a social construct…

People may have noticed by now that my favorite musical directors tend to be from the Vintage and Golden Age eras (and that my tastes continue to drift further back in time). My fondness for classic Bollywood soundtracks, as with movies, begins to decline after the early ’60s. I do have some favorites in the early ’70s (Pakeezah, Mera Naam Joker…), but these films and soundtracks are the works of artists from the Golden Age. I find it more difficult to think of favorite material that came from artists who actually emerged at this later time. But there are exceptions, especially in music – i.e., composers who came up with songs that I find startlingly good, causing me to “rethink” the ’60s and ’70s, leaving me open to the idea that I might actually catch some of the love that other fans of classic Bollywood have for this era.

Chief among those composers are the duo Laxmikant-Pyarelal. Their soundtracks – especially their earlier ones – have continued to hook me and surprise me at the same time. And there are a few songs of theirs that I always find it difficult to get out of my head…

First in my mind are a couple of songs from Mastana (1970). I appreciate this movie most because of the rare combination of Padmini co-starring with Mehmood, but aside from that, the music is great! [Note in looking at this some time later: The original song was wiped out on YouTube, but there is another great one, the Holi song, which I’ve also posted elsewhere in this blog.]

I imagine that just about every fan of old Hindi soundtracks must love the next one. Parasmani (1963) was Laxmikant-Payarelal’s first film, and what a debut it was! I love the opening, especially… Is that an early ’60s example of the Western (notice capital “W”) influence on Bollywood music? This is one of my favorite Helen dances too (in the top 10, maybe the top 5), and I’m glad that I have access to the subtitles, because there are some very amusing lines in the lyrics (btw, still trying to find out who wrote those)…

And as I pointed out when I posted “Ooi Maa Ooi Maa” close to two and a half years ago, the song was apparently a hit in China too:

The more I hear the next song, from Jal Bin Machhli Nritya Bin Bijli, the more it delights me. Of course, Sandhya’s dance here is fantastic too, but the music by itself stands out as one of the greatest film music compositions of the 1970s (at least among the ones that I know). I posted this once before (prompting much discussion!), but the copy that I posted was removed – which is perfectly OK, because that gives me more of an excuse to repost this song via Mr. Bollywooddeewana’s copy with English subtitles:

Follow Blog via Email

Join 67 other followers

Contact:

If you would like to contact me, e-mail to chardsinger [at] yahoo.com. I also have a Facebook timeline, where I have been spending too much time. (But it is only partially like this blog in terms of subject matter.) Anyway, especially if you know me somewhat, and you are on Facebook, you might want to connect there. Send an e-mail so that we can talk more about it and maybe exchange URLs to "friend."